Pre-service Teachers’ Appropriation of Conceptual Tools

Abstract

Teachers and teacher educators in the US struggle with conflicting needs. They must thinkcritically and adaptively in response to the rapidly changing demographics of their students andadjust to a policy climate that emphasizes standardization, measurement, and disregard forteachers as professionals. Embattled pre-service teacher education programs in institutions ofhigher education have traditionally sought to develop teacher candidates’ knowledge, skills, anddispositions. The authors argue that in the current climate pre-service teachers also mustappropriate conceptual frameworks to support their development as responsive professionals.While dispositions are beliefs and attitudes the origin and teaching of which remain in dispute,concepts like social justice, political-economic equity, and formative assessment are abstract ideasor concepts that inform practice. Conceptual tools, i.e., concepts, theories, and frameworks, guidenovice teachers in making decisions in response to the growing and rapidly changing studentpopulations they will teach as well as the policy contexts that constrain their teaching practice.The appropriation of conceptual tools contributes to development of vision and adaptive expertiserequired by responsive teacher professionals.Using an activity theory framework developed by Wartofsky (1973/1979) that draws in particularon the classification of artifacts, or tools, this article frames and critically examines teachers’need for conceptual tools, the appropriation of those tools, and a mixed methods study of thatappropriation. The study demonstrates that teacher candidates do appropriate conceptual tools,but that measurement of that process, though desirable in the current policy context, requires thedevelopment of a systematic and replicable methodology.